Book Discovery Reinvented By Squirl

When you think media discovery you think aggregators, iTunes, Amazon etc. You may get info from one or two reviews websites and then by word of mouth. It seems that during the past few years, anything new with media discovery was just realigning API’s from services currently available. Those new startups would get a “oh that’s neat” and people would move on.

When you think location based discovery you think FourSquare, Swarm and the thousands of apps that have tried to copy them. Location based discovery has always been about food, friends, shopping and events. That’s it.

What would happen if you combined the two?

You would get Squirl, a location based book discovery platform that allows you to discover books based on your geographic location.

Do you have a peaceful spot in a park near your home? Are you traveling to an interesting new city, countryside or even across the globe? Have you ever daydreamed in a strange place and thought about what stories could possibly take place there?

Well Jef Van der Avoort has thought about all those things and how creating a platform that would let you discover books based on geographic location could put you in the story.

Now we aren’t talking about travel guides or just every book from Memphis Tennessee having some strange John Grisham reference, we’re talking about the streets, intersections, water ways, countries, hotels, Inns, museums and even cemeteries in real life, where stories in books took place.

Imagine how cool that would be for the avid reader or the avid traveler.

Squirl takes the reader to a strange hybrid place between reality, imagination and fiction. Sure we all know that Sherlock Holmes lived at 211b Baker Street but what about a few blocks west. Many Sherlockian experts know that when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes there was no 221b Baker Street, but many years later there was. There are many famous London addresses accidentally mentioned in fiction.

The same thing holds true for addresses in the United States as well.

Imagine all that could be learned by location based discovery for books? You could read a great novel by a well known author or a newcomer while you’re on vacation in a new town or city. Then if circumstance permitted you could eat at the same restaurant, drink at the same bar, dance at the same jazz club. The possibilities are endless.

In a time where more and more people are gravitating toward technology it’s great to see new formats tackle classic interests and reinvigorate the excitement in pure reading.